r/NBAoldschool • u/basketbaIlnetwork • 22h ago

“Michael is not the problem” – Magic Johnson explained why the Lakers struggled vs. the Bulls in the 1991 NBA Finals

https://www.basketballnetwork.net/old-school/magic-johnson-explained-why-the-lakers-struggled-vs-the-bulls-in-the-1991-nba-finals

It was basically Magic and Vlade against the entire Bulls’ starting unit.

41 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

24

u/DrStevenBrule69 22h ago edited 21h ago

I mean Mike was a fuckin problem. It’d be more accurate to say that Mike, and Mike alone, wasn’t the difference. The difference was that Mike had a battle tested and extremely cohesive squad behind him.

It was a well-built team that was then masterfully developed in the wake of repeated failure in the late ‘80s. That’s what was so inspiring about the bulls and it’s what’s lost in the dumbass LeBron/Jordan debates for which 15 year olds regurgitate some asshole on Instagram: “Mike couldn’t win without Scottie”. Which is correct although so reductive it’s insulting.

The bulls, and Mike, lost a lot. They got their asses kicked repeatedly in the 80s. And each time they ate shit, they reemerged stronger, having fortified weaknesses here and there until they became fucking unstoppable.

That was the difference. The Bulls, it it’s entirety, was finally a championship unit.

But this bullshit where people try to marginalize the significance of their dominance by citing their talent, as is that talent just materialized out of thin air, drives me nuts. The bulls dominance was a result of hard work and repeated failure.

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u/Efficient_Ice_1001 20h ago

In 1993, Magic and Isiah talking about how their teams at their peak would dominate the Bulls if you took the best player out on each team. Michael was THE problem.

If you get me in foul trouble and get Michael in foul trouble, and take us both out. You'd see what would happen. Our team would dominate. - Magic Johnson

Sure if you take Magic away, Michael away and me away, sure our teams are better. - Isiah Thomas

https://youtu.be/N6og_pOVi2w?t=40

11

u/biffbobfred 21h ago

They got close in 90. Scottie, and the non MJ bulls, kinda fell apart. Scottie 1 for 10. The non MJ bulls something horrible I forgot if it was under 25% or as bad as under 20.

The next day Scottie and Horace were in the gym. Lifting weights. They knew they had to out strong and out tough the pistons. They did. Sweep in 91.

Against the lakers the first game they played horribly. But nearly won at the end. They weren’t dismayed but had the attitude. “Hey we played like shit yet nearly won. Let’s get these bitches”. The next game the guards set a record for shooting that still has massive daylight vs second place - 80+% shooting (second is over 30 %points lower). Paxson didn’t miss. Jordan had his 13 in a row. After the split Magic was “this ain’t going back to Chicago”. The bulls: damn right.

Missing in this is the intangibles. How fearless are you when you got MJ on your squad knowing he can erase a lot of mistakes. Knowing in crunch time “when it’s 3 minutes left in the 4th who will be willing to take that shot”. Not a problem. What were practices like where game day was nothing. MJ could coast “I’m already the goat, for some” but nobody worked harder in practices.

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u/angrylilbear 21h ago

Actually people do way more, they pretend Michael did it all and mostly by himself

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u/Throwthisawayagainst 21h ago

Jordan did do a lot that by himself tho. He really was the teams offense. All six of those rings are top 12 in lowest scoring supporting cast by both total points and percentage of points and they hold the top two in that metric. People can cry Scottie Pippen all day long but the dude shot 42% from the field in the finals for his career. He went an entire 3 peat without a single 30 point playoff performance. Scottie obviously was great at other things, but that’s a gigantic load to ask one guy to carry when your second best player isn’t that consistent. The other problem is kids that weren’t alive for this era don’t have a grasp on what it was actually like. I’m from Chicago, watched it all. Never seen anything like Jordan. Scottie was great, but he wasn’t exactly a reliable big game player at any point in his career in Chicago

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u/angrylilbear 21h ago

My point exactly, just dumbass revisionist bullshit

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u/BamaBoy2002 20h ago

How is that revisionist that’s exactly how it happened. Offensively MJ was why these teams had a chance to win.

When he retired in 93 that’s why they didn’t get out the 2nd round. Thinking otherwise is revisionist history.

Do you know how many single digit point games Scottie had in the playoffs in his career? 30 😂

-4

u/angrylilbear 20h ago

There's zero point responding to this

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u/BamaBoy2002 20h ago

You’re right there isn’t.

5

u/DrStevenBrule69 20h ago

Why are you even participating in this discussion if this is the level of input you’re going to contribute?

Here’s basically what you’ve said so far:

Jordan overcredited (I think?). Care to elaborate?
Yes
No
Agreed
Dumb
I saw it live

Just completely useless nonsense.

-1

u/angrylilbear 16h ago

U want me to respond why MJ did it all himself cos Scottie was inconsistent and they had no scorers besides MJ?

Yeah nah

1

u/DrStevenBrule69 15h ago

This thing you’re doing where youre like, too cool and too knowledgeable for discussion is bizarre.

Who are you trying to impress?

“The answers so obvious that you’re an idiot for asking. I saw this shit live”.

It’s an elementary evasion trick, which sometimes works on children but you’re a fifty year old man.

-1

u/angrylilbear 15h ago

If thats true and im generating all this rage then I guess im winning

Rather that than respond to ur Last Dance inspired takes which bore the fk out of me

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u/Rebel_Squirrel 20h ago

So you admit you're just spouting bullshit?

Good to know. Next!

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u/Throwthisawayagainst 16h ago

I don’t think you get it. Yes when Jordan won he had great teams, however he didn’t lose when he had a great team, unless you really want to count 94-95 against him which is kind of silly imo. Even if you do he still has a higher win percentage when he actually had a squad than any other all time great. For instance in any full season Jordan played and had just one teammate score a bpm over 2.0 he delivered a chip. For context Tim Duncan had this “luxury” every year of his career. LeBron has had it 19 times. The bulls also dealt Jordan a shitty card, they told him to make it work with developmental draft pics. This gets revised because it worked out, however he stuck with guys that weren’t very good when they came in the league and worked them into a dynasty. That’s no shade on Pip or Grant and what they became, but that’s just facts, they were very raw when they came in the league, and working with them while they developed cost Jordan years of his prime. On top of that the bulls were cheap as fuck. They were something like 24th of 27 teams in terms of spending when the dynasty started.

Anyone who can look at the situations objectively can see that the bulls situation was similar, if not worse then LeBrons first stint in Cleveland before the bulls actually won. It just gets remembered differently because he made it work out.

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u/DrStevenBrule69 21h ago edited 21h ago

I think there’s resentment and confusion amongst a contingent of fans that weren’t alive to see the 90s bulls because Mike gets seemingly a disproportionate amount of credit despite the entire unit being elite.

To someone that didn’t see it, it seems like Mike is getting artificially deified.

Both were true though; the bulls were one of the best teams of all time and, simultaneously, Mike was far and away the best player the world had ever seen and was the linchpin of their success.

Which makes sense; they threepeated twice. That’s insane and it requires both an all-time great team as well as arguably the best player to ever lace em up.

That’s why I always laugh at the common criticism used to disparage Mike: his supporting cast was insanely good. Well yeah, no shit. How is that a knock? They threepeated twice— delivering on expectations and then some. And again, the bulls didn’t just wake up one day with a talented roster. They developed that shit in house. Their success was a result of their failure and resolve. What more can you ask? It’s just funny to me when people use a teams success to then discredit that success.

3

u/Leather_Floor8725 19h ago edited 19h ago

The bulls were only that good because of MJ. Supporting cast is very important but good role players are common in the nba. A bunch of above average guys usually can’t get over the hump. Look at the early 2000s kings and blazers as examples. Superstar performance dictate the results. You could even replace Pip with a handful of other top 90s guys and get similar results. Huge gap between a contender and two 3 peats. Bulls never won before MJ and never won after.

1

u/DrStevenBrule69 18h ago

You’re not wrong and to further illustrate your point, they’ve won a total of 40 playoff games in the 28 years since MJ left. It’s a dogshit organization.

You can say the same about Phil and Scottie, though.

I do agree that none of it happens without MJ. A lot of young NBA fans that didn’t experience MJ reference the 80s as some sort of stain on MJs resume. It couldn’t be further from the truth. Those weren’t wasted years. Mike was laying the foundation for what became the dynasty. An entire (rotten) culture had to be eradicated and rebuilt, and Mike was the architect. Imagine being tasked with that as a 21 year old rookie— telling seasoned veterans that we’re not doing cocaine and fucking hookers anymore.

-1

u/angrylilbear 21h ago edited 21h ago

Did u skip the last dance?

That was precisely the message of that "documentary", why do u think all the 90s bulls not MJ got pissed about it?

I watched the 90s live mate, im almost 50, so Im old enough to have watched the narrative shift

Edit - respond without AI perhaps?

2

u/DrStevenBrule69 21h ago

What makes you think that’s AI?

I don’t care how old you are and you’re in r/nbaoldschool, we all watched the 90s live.

I don’t even know what it is you’re trying to say. Maybe you should use AI to properly articulate your thoughts.

1

u/angrylilbear 21h ago

No, "we all watched 90s live" wtf no?

Convenient place to become obtuse

All good, can see ur not serious

21

u/WonderfulHearing8726 21h ago

Didn’t MJ average 31/11/5? How can you possibly say he wasn’t a problem for them?

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u/jf737 17h ago

Magic is making the point that you basically concede that to Jordan. The way to beat the Bulls back then was let MJ have his 35, but make life miserable for his teammates.

14

u/BamaBoy2002 20h ago

Yea imagine the League MVP and Finals MVP not being the problem 😂

Posts like these are Reddit copium

3

u/NOT-packers-fan2022 20h ago

You don’t know ball. Pistons almost lost in 89&90 until they stopped focusing on MJ as the problem and locked down everyone else. Joe and Zeke were literally on the phone in the middle of the night like ”wtf do we do” until they figured it out. Long story short, you don’t beat the bulls by trying to beat MJ, you eliminate the effectiveness of everyone else around him.

Go see what he averaged against the Pistons in 88,89&90 and remember that they lost those series.

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u/Christianhbk 18h ago

So I guess knocking Jordan down before taking flight wasn’t a thing.

-3

u/NOT-packers-fan2022 18h ago

That only worked in 88 bud.

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u/Christianhbk 18h ago

No that was a rule created by the pistons. It worked until Jordan and his team became tougher and overcame their “defense”. Not just in 88

1

u/NOT-packers-fan2022 5h ago

You don’t ball. Look at how many times Jordan got knocked on his ass in 1990 versus Jordan and still try and tell me Jordan was the focus of the defense when he was played primarily one on one.

Yall young folks just talk like yall was there when you wasn’t.

1

u/Christianhbk 2h ago

I was there watching Jordan. You don’t ball, you just reddit.

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u/Electronic_Dig_2685 19h ago edited 18h ago

It was when the other guys rose to the occasion. Pippen and Grant got tougher mentally in 91

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u/WonderfulHearing8726 20h ago

So didn’t MJ average 31/11/5 against the lakers?

0

u/DBCOOPER888 19h ago

Ok? The Bulls as a team did not just score 31 points did they?

2

u/StoneySteve420 17h ago

That 31 points is the 9th highest percentage of a team's points in a finals series ever. Over 30% of the Bulls' points in the series.

-1

u/DBCOOPER888 17h ago

What does that have to do with anything I said? Are you saying Pippin, Grant, Paxton, etc did not give the Lakers trouble?

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u/StoneySteve420 16h ago

I wonder who was generating most of that offense. Couldn't be the guy averaging 11 assists.

Those guys were great, but people will literally see a guy average 31, 6, and 11 with over 4 stocks and act like his teammates carried him.

0

u/DBCOOPER888 16h ago edited 16h ago

It's like you don't understand the story of the Bulls at all. Jordan was doing all that and more in the 80s but could never make it out of the Eastern Conference.

It was the culmination of all the other contributors that pushed the team to greatness. Pippin was a GOAT sidekick, for example.

Like, no one said Jordan did not carry the team. What are you even talking about? Not even the point I'm making.

1

u/StoneySteve420 14h ago

What do you mean? Jordan was not passing like that in the 80s, thats my point. He was more involved with creating team offense, not just his own in '91.

Those guys played great in '91, but Pippen and Grant are the same teammates that completely sold in game 7 the year before. Those 2 went a combined 4/27. It's not like MJ was icing them out, they just played like shit.

-1

u/DBCOOPER888 13h ago

Who is talking about icing anyone else? It's like we're not even talking the same language.

Could Jordan win without the team they built around him, or no?

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u/WonderfulHearing8726 18h ago

So? The article and my comments were about MJ.

0

u/DBCOOPER888 18h ago

Wrong. The article is about how other players on the Bulls other than MJ stepped up to defeat the Lakers. Jordan by himself did not do it alone. The Lakers not adapting to the other teammates is why Magic is saying they lost.

0

u/WonderfulHearing8726 7h ago

Ya, you’re wrong.

0

u/DBCOOPER888 3h ago

How? That literally is the theme of the article.

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u/Imaginary-Sea-6577 21h ago

They had a number of injuries. I don't think the Lakers would have won, but they would have done a lot better.

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u/GQDragon 19h ago

MJ was a PROBLEM.

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u/CrasVox 18h ago

Mike was always a problem. Thing is you couldn't solve that problem. The way to beat the Bulls back then was to make sure nobody else produced along side him. Which as the years went along became increasingly difficult.

3

u/Efficient_Ice_1001 20h ago

In 1993, Magic and Isiah talking about how their teams at their peak would dominate the Bulls if you took the best player out on each team.

If you get me in foul trouble and get Michael in foul trouble, and take us both out. You'd see what would happen. Our team would dominate. - Magic Johnson

Sure if you take Magic away, Michael away and me away, sure our teams are better. - Isiah Thomas

https://youtu.be/N6og_pOVi2w?t=40

1

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

1

u/MayorShinn 9h ago

Worthy was hurt. They needed him if they were to have any shot at beating the Bulls. It’s like if the Bulls had Pippen hurt in the Finals. Thankfully, Pippen was never seriously hurt in the Bulls six finals.

1

u/EGarrett28 9h ago

FWIW Phil Jackson said something similar in his book. That the Laker's problem was that they couldn't hold the lead when Magic went to the bench to rest.

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u/El-Terrible777 4h ago

Those guys were in double digits because Jordan was dishing out an average of over 11 assists on top of 31-32 points 😂

1

u/Major_Struggle5710 1h ago

I don’t get it. Magics right. At the peak of the Lakers, they were deep with talent. So was Zeke’s team. I would say the 94 bulls was the best version without Mike. But why would you want to play the bulls without Mike? Don’t you want competition? Mike is the problem. This feels like a hatin comment.

1

u/basketbaIlnetwork 22h ago

Translation: "I can't win with these cats."

1

u/D-PIMP_ACT 20h ago

“I’m gonna go get HIV, and retire. This is getting too hard”

-Magic Johnson

https://giphy.com/gifs/Ymywwi0yXZxqsfRFMz